Judea Pearl: What Reason I Find for Hope After October 7

Judea Pearl’s new book, Coexistence and Other Fighting Words: Selected Writings of Judea Pearl, 2002–2025, compiles the author’s writings on topics such as Israel, Zionophobia, antisemitism, the October 7 massacre, and his son, Daniel.

Below is an excerpt from the book, which serves as its epilogue:

Epilogue: The Crater of October 7

Science tells us that the extinction of dinosaurs occurred approximately sixty-six million years ago, when an asteroid struck the Earth, forming a huge crater in the Yucatán Peninsula. An enormous dust cloud blocked the sun, cooled the planet, and disrupted food chains, ultimately leading to the extinction of about 75 percent of all plant and animal species, including the dinosaurs.

Science tells us much about disasters that occurred millions of years ago, but, sadly, it tells us almost nothing about how our lives will be shaped by the giant crater created by the blow of October 7. Looking into its depths, we find ourselves clueless and bewildered about what future might emerge from the dust cloud that still obscures our sun — and what species, movements, or ideas will perish or evolve from the darkness, winter, and confusion it has left behind.

Some say they were surprised by the brutality and hatred of October 7. Others were shocked by the scale of the operation and how close it came to its goal.

As a native Israeli, raised on the stories of the Hebron Massacre (1929) and haunted by the horrific images of the Ramallah lynching (2000), I was not surprised by the brutality and savagery of Israel’s enemies. Nor was I surprised by the depth of their hatred and inhumanity — a reality I painfully experienced in the murder of my son, Danny. Likewise, I already saw the early and deep infiltration of Hamas’ ideology into Western thought. Indeed, this book documents my premonitions about this process and the extent to which Hamas’ ideology mirrors the essential Palestinian mindset: “From the river to the sea.”

What, then, shocked me about the crater of October 7?

I was shocked by how swiftly Zionophobia — the absolute denial of Israel’s right to exist — became normalized, mainstream, and even respectable in Western discourse, precisely at Israel’s moment of greatest vulnerability.

I’ve witnessed many personal attacks on Israel before, but they always followed her victories and achievements. Those attacks I could understand; people instinctively side with the underdog. But the post-October 7 attacks were different. This time, they were driven by a wholehearted desire for Israel’s demise — with all its genocidal implications. The scent of blood, it seems, triggered a hunger for more. Hordes of predators emerged from their ideological tunnels, rushing to indict, sentence, and lynch Israel in the finest tradition of herd madness.

Can the Jewish people survive this madness? Can Western civilization endure the dangers rising from these tunnels?

Ideologies, once metastasized, are deadlier than the sword. We have heard Western intellectuals brand the Bibas family as “settlers,” thus, legitimate targets. Others went even further, labeling them “Nazi guards of a concentration camp.” A civilization capable of generating such images has lost all moral bearings and may not endure for long.

Yet I refuse to say that we are doomed.

Not because the threats aren’t real, but because alongside the spreading moral decay, I have also found islands of moral clarity, primarily among my fellow Jews, my students, and my academic colleagues. The crater of October 7 has created a deeper appreciation of Israel’s centrality in Jewish life, along with a sharper understanding of the outbreak of Zionophobia in its aftermath. This renewed awareness encompasses not only Israel’s historical, cultural, and spiritual significance to Jewish identity, but also its role as the embodiment of Jewish “normalcy.” In these islands of moral clarity, the existence of Israel is now understood to be essential to ensuring that Jews everywhere are treated as equals — not as a unique, tolerated, respected, or admired minority, but as equals. In short, no Jew can be truly equal in the family of man before Israel stands equal in the family of nations.

I cannot end without evoking the victims. I see them, the children of Western civilization, sons and daughters of Isaac and Prometheus: my son, Danny, Ilan Halimi, the Bibas family, the one thousand two hundred murdered on October 7. I imagine them standing up, waiting for me, for us, to say something meaningful. All I can say is Yitgadal Ve’Yitkadash Shmai Rabah — the Jewish prayer of mourning recited in memory of the dead. A prayer that does not mention death or mourning, but glorifies God and expresses hope for a good life and universal peace. It is a humble confession of our inability to comprehend God’s cruel ways of playing with human lives and world order.

I sang this prayer at Danny’s funeral. I said to Danny: “I’ll sing it to you in the special melody that your great-grandfather chanted on Yom Kippur.” It’s a melody that rattles the gates of Heaven and pleads for mending our broken world order.

Yitgadal Ve’Yitkadash Shmai Rabah

Judea Pearl is Chancellor’s professor at UCLA and president of the Daniel Pearl Foundation.